Halle Viennese 2005

A Viennese Confection

New Year celebrations and the music of Johann Strauss seem to be such natural and inseparable companions that the association must, surely, go back well into the composer’s lifetime. In fact, the tradition didn’t begin until forty years after his death - in a Vienna very different from the city he knew (and very different from the one we know now). Austria having been annexed by Germany 1938, Clemens Krauss and the Vienna Philharmonic chose to give a “Special Concert” of music by the Strauss family on the last day of 1939 as, it is said, a discreet act of Viennese cultural defiance. Ironically, the Nazi authorities liked the idea. In 1941, the event having been switched from New Year’s Eve to the morning of New Year’s Day, German Radio began the annual wartime practice of broadcasting the Vienna Philharmonic’s Strauss concert to the glory of “Greater Germany.”

There was just one problem. According to a record in the register of St Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, a Johann Michael Strauss who got married there in 1762 was “a baptised Jew.” What that means is that - by way of Johann Michael’s son Franz Borgias - Johann I, the founder of the Strauss musical dynasty, and his sons Johann II, Josef and Eduard were of (partly) Jewish descent. However, while the Nazi regime believed that banning Mendelssohn and Mahler would do their cause no harm, they felt that they could not afford to lose Johann Strauss. So, to conceal the Jewish origin of his great-grandfather, they falsified the entry in the St Stephen’s register and continued to support the annual broadcast of the New Year’s Day concerts from the Musikverein. The sequence was broken by the proximity of the war in 1945 but was taken up again a year later, in very different political circumstances, and has gone on to this day. Since Austrian TV began its live broadcasts of the concerts in 1959 they have become an international institution of ever growing popularity.

So, bearing in mind that Johann II, the greatest of the Strausses, appeared with the Vienna Philharmonic in the Musikverein only once, when he directed the first performance of Wiener Blut in April 1873, the tradition is something of a confection. But, as long as the ingredients are of good quality and the preparation authentically done, every one likes a confection. That is why, over the last fifty years or so, orchestras all over the world - the Hallé was one of the first in this country - have adopted the practice of giving Viennese concerts in the New Year period. The music is not too serious for a holiday season and yet too good not to have a regular place in the concert hall.

Franz von Suppé (1819-1895)

Overture: Die leichte Kavallerie (Light Cavalry)

When Franz von Suppé started working in the theatre, as an unpaid assistant conductor at the Theater in der Josefstadt in 1840, Viennese operetta as we know it did not exist. It would not exist, in fact, until 1860 when, challenged by the overwhelming popularity of the Offenbach operettas recently imported from Paris, he wrote Das Pensionat, which is certainly not the best known of its kind but was probably the first. He went on to write dozens more, including Die schöne Galathea in 1865, Fatinitza in 1876 and Bocaccio (”the greatest success of my life”) in 1879. If many of them are now remembered only by their overtures, it is not so much because the operettas are so very inferior as because the overtures are so very good.

Suppé was a master of the overture from an early stage in his career, as he demonstrated in Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna in 1844. The Light Cavalry Overture - written for a two-act comic opera at the Carltheater in 1866 - is one of the most popular of all his compositions. Not surprisingly, it makes a special feature of military material, from the ceremonial fanfares that open and close the piece to the brilliant trumpet gallop associated in the operetta with a cavalry ride across the Hungarian plains. The Hungarian setting also allowed Suppé to indulge a characteristic Viennese taste for Hungarian flavouring, as in the lively dance that opens the main section of the overture and the passionate melody for lower strings introduced by a clarinet cadenza in the middle.

Johann Strauss II (1825-1899)

Waltz: Frühlingsstimmen (Voices of Spring), Op.410

The Viennese waltz, as Johann I developed it and Johann II perfected it, is not just a one-tune affair. Like Voices of Spring, it might consist of many as four distinct waltz-time sections in succession, each one of them based on two different themes. Clearly, as the composer of well over a hundred waltzes (not including those in his operettas), Johann II was a uniquely resourceful melodist. Written originally as a vocal piece for the coloratura soprano Bianca Bianchi, Voices of Spring was dismissed on its first performance in 1883 as “not very melodious” - which would suggest that Mme Bianchi didn’t sing it very well. Certainly, as an orchestral waltz, it is outstanding for the quality of its tunes, not least the sensitively syncopated and delicately scored first theme of the second section. Although, unlike some others among Johann II’s more ambitious waltzes, Voices of Spring has no introduction, it does have a coda to recall the vigorous opening theme and put a brilliant ending to it.

Johann Strauss II

Polka: Auf der Jagd (At the Hunt), Op.373

Just as the ballroom supplied operetta with some of its most successful numbers, usually in the form of waltzes or polkas, so operetta replenished the ballroom repertoire with selections of its most successful numbers, usually in the form of waltzes or polkas. Rosen aus dem Süden (“Roses from the South”), for example, one of the most sophisticated of all Viennese medley waltzes, is made up of tunes from the seventh of Johann II’s operettas, Das Spitzentuch der Königin (“The Queen’s Lace Handkerchief”). The quick polka Auf der Jagd (“At the Hunt”) - a title which invites a particularly colourful use of horns and trumpets - comes from a Strauss operetta much admired by Johannes Brahms, Cagliostro in Wien (“Cagliostro in Vienna”), which was first performed at the Theater an der Wien in 1875.

Franz Lehár (1870-1948)

Overture: Das Land des Lächelns (Land of Smiles)

Firmly, even rigidly rooted in tradition, the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Day concerts rarely include music by composers outside the Strauss family. In the last few years there have been pieces by Weber, who invented the concert-waltz form, Joseph Lanner, who developed the distinctively Viennese waltz style along with Johann Strauss I, and Franz von Suppé - but no Lehár, even though his Gold und Silber (Gold and Silver) is one of the most popular of all Viennese waltzes and his Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow) the most successful of all Viennese operettas after Die Fledermaus. Although Lehár’s popularity waned after the First World War, it was spectacularly revived in the 1920s by his association with the Austrian tenor Richard Tauber, for whom he wrote several leading roles, including that of Sou-Chong in Das Land des Lächelns (The Land of Smiles). Tauber’s voice and Lehár’s romantic vocal lines seemed to be made for each other and between them they created huge popular successes, not least Das Land des Lächelns, one number from which “Dein ist mein ganzes Herz,” (usually translated as “You are my heart’s desire”) is the most famous example of the characteristic Tauber song.

Although “Dein ist mein ganzes Herz” features prominently in the Overture, Lehár seems to prefer a Tauber song from earlier in the operetta, “Immer nur lächeln” (Always keep smiling). Certainly “Immer nur lächeln” is the melody heard at the beginning of the piece and - after a passage based on “Dein ist mein ganzes Herz” and an amusing Chinese episode from the second act - it is the melody he chooses to recall in romantic splendour at the end.

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Hungarian Dance No.6 in D major (arranged Parlow)

Brahms, who was to become one of Johann II’s greatest admirers, was an enthusiast for Hungarian-gypsy music even before he settled in Vienna, where it was to be heard almost as often as in Budapest. Having partnered a Hungarian violinist called Eduard Reményi on concert tours in his early twenties, Brahms was intimately familiar with the idiom and retained his affection for it to the end of his life. His Hungarian Dances for piano duet, drawing on his memories of the music he had played with Reményi but on other sources too, were written between 1858 and 1880, the later ones in Vienna.

Unfortunately, Brahms himself orchestrated only three of his Hungarian Dances. The version we are about to hear of No.6 in D major is by bandmaster Parlow who, having Brahms’s own examples as authentic models, could scarcely go wrong. Based on Nittinger’s “The Dance of the Rose Bush,” it is a particularly brilliant example of what Brahms and his contemporaries found so attractive in the Hungarian gypsy idiom. The teasingly slow opening followed by a sudden explosion of energy is only one of the many tempo changes in a dance remarkable for its exuberant harmonies, its reckless rhythms and, with at least five distinct tunes presented in quick succession, its melodic abundance.

Johann Strauss II

Kaiser-Walzer (Emperor Waltz), Op.437

The Emperor Waltz is not only a great piece of music but also a great piece of PR. It was written to celebrate the historic state visit made by Kaiser Franz Joseph I of Austria to Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany in Berlin in 1889 and was given its grand but neutral title so as to offend neither emperor and to flatter them both. Imperial in inspiration, it is also imperial in stature. The introduction takes the form of a delicately scored march, while the first of the waltz tunes - briefly anticipated in march time before its definitive introduction in waltz time on horn and violins - must be the most dignified of its kind. Although none of the following three waltzes is quite as stately, trumpets and trombones certainly make an imposing entry in the last but one of them. Not satisfied with a recapitulation of almost symphonic proportions, recalling the second and third waltzes as well as the main theme itself, Strauss adds an epilogue featuring a thoughtful solo cello and a brilliantly ceremonial ending.

Johann Strauss II (1825-1899)

Overture: Die Fledermaus

Die Fledermaus is all about having a good time. Other issues arise - like revenge, marital fidelity, social pretension, crime and punishment - but none of them is treated as seriously as the desirability of indulging oneself, preferably at someone else’s expense. The only Strauss operetta actually set it in Vienna, it brought the composer his first major success in the theatre on its first performance in 1874 and has remained one of the most successful of its kind. Not the least entertaining part of the opera is the Overture which, since it takes no account of the order of events in the plot, requires no previous knowledge of how one of its principal characters acquired the embarrassing nickname of “Die Fledermaus” (The Bat) and how he gets his own back at a lavish and rather dissolute party thrown by the Russian Prince Orlofsky.

The Overture begins with the most dramatic music in the score, which accompanies a show-down scene in a remarkably comfortable Viennese prison in the last of the three acts. It then cuts back to the bell striking six to mark the end of the central ball scene and cuts back again to the vigorous waltz which represents the climax of the Orlofsky festivities. A sentimental episode from the first act is followed by an increasingly impatient effort to get back to where the action is and the earlier tunes are duly recalled in an irresistibly reckless recapitulation.

Johann Strauss II

Polka: Tritsch-Tratsch (Chit-Chat), Op.214

Although the polka was almost as popular as the waltz in the 1850s and 60s, it didn’t stay in fashion for anything like as long. It was an exhilarating ballroom exercise but neither as sexy for the dancer nor as interesting for the composer. Its high-energy requirement meant that it rarely lasted longer than two or three minutes while its high-speed rhythmic activity gave the composer little opportunity to do more than put a cheerful tune to it and dress it up in colourful orchestration. Tritsch-Tratsch, which was written at the height of the polka craze in 1858, is an outstandingly brilliant example. Named after a contemporary Viennese gossip magazine, it demonstrates just how quickly and how irresistibly chit-chat or tittle-tattle can get round a crowded ballroom.

Josef Strauss (1827-1870)

Waltz: Sphärenklänge (Music of the Spheres), Op.235

He is the more gifted of us two,” said Johann II of his brother Josef. “I am merely the more popular.” Indeed, if Josef Strauss had not been plagued by illness, which resulted in his comparatively early death, and if he had been as ambitious as his brothers, he might well have turned to be a greater composer than either Eduard or Johann. Sphärenklänge (Music of the Spheres) offers an inspired example of the musically rewarding art of liberating a melody from its triple-time accompaniment. Melodies of this distinction - there are rarely more than one in each waltz - are usually anticipated in a slow introduction, as this one so appealingly is in an episode as atmospheric as any scena in a ballet. Like its counterparts in most other Viennese waltzes, it is then presented in its definitive form as the first main theme - gliding in on violins and floating with heavenly serenity above the persistent rhythm of even crotchets below it - and is recalled in glory at the end. The nine comparatively modest tunes that are heard in the meantime in this particular piece are chosen not so much for their spherical relevance as for their entertainment value and their potential as contrasting material.

Johannes Brahms

Hungarian Dance No.5 in G minor (arr.Parlow)

Based on Béla Kéler’s Souvenir de Bártfai and a Slavonic tune of uncertain origin, the Hungarian Dance No.5 - heard today in the Parlow version - is another display of rhythmic vigour with a particularly stylish episode of syncopations following the explosively energetic first entry of the main theme.

Johann Strauss II

Waltz: An der schönen blauen Donau (By the Beautiful Blue Danube), Op.314

The last item in the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Day programme is always An der schönen blauen Donau (By the Beautiful Blue Danube), the most famous of all waltzes. Written in 1867, it has achieved the status of a Viennese folksong, or anthem even. Although the original version, written for the Vienna Men’s Choral Association, has fairly frivolous words supplied by the Association’s poet Josef Seyl, the choral version usually performed these days has a new text which, added in 1890, confirms the depth of the local sentiment inspired by the waltz in the meantime. But that choral version doesn’t have the splendid coda which in the orchestral version recapitulates and develops the main themes of four of the five sections, referring back to the leisurely introduction and effortlessly completing a perfectly integrated construction.

Johann Strauss I (1804-1849)

Radetzky March, Op.228

The New Year’s Day concert does not end there, however. After An der schönen blauen Donau there has to be an encore and it has to be Johann I’s Radetzky March, which means as much to Vienna as any of the Strauss waltzes. It was written to celebrate the decisive victory of the Austrian Army led by the 82-year-old Field-Marshal Johann Josef Wenzel, Count Radetzky von Radetz, over the Italian forces at Custozza in 1848. Reputedly completed in no more than two hours and incorporating two Viennese folk songs, it is one of the least solemn and one of the most effective pieces of its kind. For the Viennese at least, “It fires the blood like paprika.”